Down the Rabbit Hole
by ChessHatter
Summary: What if Arcadia really existed with Claire and the other survivors safely making their way there? What if Alice - by chance - made her way there, despite losing her memory after crashing Wesker's helicopter? Further explanation can be found inside the first chapter. Rated M to be on the safe side.


This is my very first story written for Resident Evil and the first fanfic I have written in a very long time, but I simply could not stop the plot bunnies from running rampant when I started watching the movies. This will be a AU story, based on the idea that a place called Arcadia actually existed in Alaska and that Claire and the other survivors made it there safe and sound**. I moved the base that gets destroyed at the beginning of RE: Afterlife to a place in Alaska** because that suited my story better, because as strong as Alice may be I sincerely doubt she would be able to make it from Tokyo to Alaska on foot and without any memories ;).

This story is also unBeta'd, should anyone know a good Beta or want to take this role unto themselves I would gladly take the offer. Please feel free to point out any glaring mistakes, English is not my native language so there are bound to be mistakes in this story.

Disclaimer: RE and its characters are in no way mine, sadly enough.

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Alice smiled sadly as she felt rather than saw the shock of the blast rocking the helicopter violently as the explosive device blew up the secret Umbrella base situated in the Wrangell Mountains. The clones she had sent in to destroy the Alaska Headquarters had done a thorough job of distracting the guards while she – the real Alice – had crept into the emergency aircraft, patiently waiting for General Wesker who would be sure to escape the facility this way if her clones failed to kill him. Although Alice had felt justified in sending them in – her copies had certainly been thrilled at getting their shot at taking revenge on Umbrella – the brunette felt a wave of guilt sweeping through her as she knew none of them would have been able to escape the force of the explosion. Though stronger than any average human being and blessed with a much quicker capacity to heal, Alice knew they were weaker than she was, a fact which had been proven time and again during the raids made on Umbrella laboratories in an attempt to shut down the entire corporation. Every single time the original Alice had joined teams of her clones into battle and every –singe-time she had been the only one to escape these fights alive- if not unscathed. These copies had been the last ones, leaving Alice once again feeling desolate and alone in her fight against the undead and the people who had been the cause of the apocalypse that had swept up the entire earth in a matter of months.

_Though they are not the only ones who bear the blame for this catastrophe, for this destruction of mankind…_

A familiar sense of guilt started nagging at Alice's thoughts again, the former project now being used to these feelings as they had been in her mind from the moment she had seen the first people of the team of soldiers sent to investigate the situation in the Hive die in front of her eyes. Even then, she had had the vague idea that somehow, she should have been able to save them, should have been able to keep them all alive, if only she had tried harder to recover her memories which had been skirting at the edges of her thoughts, tauntingly close yet still too far away for her mind to get a firm grasp on whatever the fuck had happened in the underground facility.

Shaking her head to focus again on the situation at hand, Alice slowly crept forward until she could press her gun against Wesker's slick-haired temple. The black suit and sunglasses made the brunette want to roll her eyes in exasperated contempt as she thought how incredibly clichéd Umbrella could be in its choice of employers.

_A mad scientist going all Dr. Jeckyll in the end and a General with a serious Matrix-complex, good to know that the company which had basically invaded every home at the end of the world as humanity knew it had such high standards when recruiting people. Who knows what sort of calamities might have happened otherwise?_

Bringing her head on the same level as Wesker's, Alice couldn't hold back the venom-dripping words that left her mouth as she pressed her lips against the man's ear, "Any last words?"

What she had not counted on, however, were Wesker's incredibly fast reflexes as he turned and plunged a syringe filled with god-knows-what into her neck. Stunned, the now former- project fell to her knees, gasping for air, fingers scrabbling to take a firm hold on the object injecting her with what felt to Alice like liquid fire. Feeling a paralyzing cold seeping into her bones, Alice vaguely registered the taunting words of the General looming above her, the anti-virus ripping the infected cells in her blood to shreds while making her wonder about the ridiculous notion of how the sensation of such tiny little molecules could be compared to driving nails through the young woman's body. Finally able to wrench the syringe from her neck, Alice felt like laughing hysterically. Seriously? Now? After all these years of wanting to regain her humanity, of pleading with the White Queen for a cure to remove the cursed powers coursing through her veins – only to be crushed down into reality when the AI refused to grant Alice her most desperate wish. Now, when she needed these cells that made her body feel so foreign to herself the most, now she was finally granted back her own, _normal_ body with its _normal_ strength, _average _speed and painfully slow healing capabilities. If LJ had still been around, he would have certainly mentioned the irony of the situation in the most philosophical manner and with a "custom shit is still the best to tackle the world with, Alice Abernathy, and don't your forget it!".

The words "The Umbrella Corporation is taking back its property" ignited a feeling of rage in the brunette. She refused to be seen as a tool for the Corporation any longer. Although they had turned her into the monster she felt she had become, after the last time she had been taken over by the Umbrella satellite something had snapped inside of Alice, a very thin line that had been stretched and stretched over many lonely years of killing the undead before it had finally caved under the desperate scream of a red-haired convoy leader.

_Claire…_

The overwhelming feeling of sadness and rage that that scream had carried, had touched something deep inside of Alice, something the project had thought to be long dead, shrivelled and dried up from months under the scorching sun, bled dry by every infected she had killed and crushed down by every victim she had failed to save. Yet, there it was, still sparking up faintly at hearing the redhead's grief. Sabotaging the satellite had filled Alice with a sense of freedom – brief though it had been- as if she had temporarily shaken off the chains that bound her to Umbrella, just long enough to push the self-loathing she harboured to the back of her mind and to extract her revenge on Dr. Isaacs and his team. And although the feeling of being something created by Umbrella had returned shortly after killing the scientist, Alice refused to let anyone else see her this way especially those who had made her. They may have created her, but they certainly did not _own_ her.

_Not anymore._

Funnelling that rage into her weakening limbs, the brunette pushed herself up and swung her fist at Wesker, only to have it blocked and twisted painfully as the General closed his first around hers, crushing her fingers cruelly before kicking her into the side of the helicopter. Not willing to give up just yet Alice jumped to her feet again, fully intent to not go down without a decent fight, yet her body began failing her as the antivirus created havoc inside her while Wesker rained blow after blow on the ex-project, leaving her gasping desperately for air as he loomed above her, mocking her while revealing himself to be just as monstrous as she was – used to be. However, she felt she owed the bastard as he had after all helped her to achieve something she had been pining after for so long.  
Still, that didn't mean she had to _like_ thanking him. Gritting her teeth, Alice managed to push out her thanks to the General gloating above her while pointing his gun at her head.

He scoffed, "Thank me? For what, killing you?"

Fastening her eyes one something behind Wesker's back, Alice felt a strange sense of relief sweeping over her as she said what she thought to be her last words ever to be uttered in this lifetime; "For making me human again".

Right at that time, the helicopter's computer began giving out warning calls for the pilot to pull up the steering wheel as the aircraft was flying towards a mountain range at full speed. Knowing Wesker would never make it in time, Alice simply closed her eyes and let her body fly through the air as she was hurled into a flaming fireball and thrown to the ground. She felt shrapnel burying its way into her skin, flames licking at her back, a white-hot explosion of pain as her head hit some hard and unforgiving surface and then…nothing but sweet darkness.

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I hope you guys liked this first chapter. The plan is to update this story once a week but it might be a bit slower as my thesis-deadline will start looming closer on the horizon. Please bear in mind that I am in no way a very good writer and that the only way to improve my writing – and to entertain you guys with better stories- is by leaving some feedback and reviews for me.


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